Teaching Character in Our Schools

Before considering what educational approach is most “successful,” the conversation needs to be directed to rethinking the fundamental aims of education and schools themselves.

What is the role of education in the pressing problems that vex a democratic society, problems like political polarization, economic stagnation, environmental sustainability, climate change, bigotry, racism and so on? Meeting these challenges requires a heavy dose of creativity, innovation, tenacity, critical thinking and openness in the citizenry. Yes, grit.

One need only consider what set the United States apart from the rest of the world as a leader in innovation and economics in the 20th century: the capacity for creative invention and entrepreneurship (grit), not the ability to memorize procedures and algorithms and recall facts, as focused on in traditional academics.

SCOTT BEALL Beacon, N.Y., Jan. 11, 2015

The writer teaches mathematics to grades 5 through 7.

To the Editor:

For as long as “personality” has been measured, there have been empirical studies showing its effects on learning over and above the contributions of “intelligence.” It’s researchers who need more “grit”!

The lack of an integrative theoretical perspective leads to sporadic, scattershot, culture-bound approaches, and will continue to do so until a more unified, comprehensive model provides systematic direction for parents, pedagogy and educational environments.

This is not an exhaustive list, and all of these constructs are still actively (and often usefully) employed, usually without acknowledgment of the others.

We are “doing good” in a piecemeal fashion, but it is tragic that the pressure to publish novel results and market their application has so impeded our advancement toward a level of scientific understanding that could genuinely transform learning from the granularity of temporary impulses to the power of a unified model.

JOHN F. STEVENSON Providence, R.I., Jan. 13, 2015

The writer is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Rhode Island.

To the Editor:

Your Op-Talk article gets at so much of what happens to educational ideals and initiatives. They morph and ultimately fade. The focus on grit since the psychologist Angela Duckworth’s 2007 research, which is rightly cited as an igniter of the recent focus on noncognitive skills, swung a pendulum that may be poised to swing back. But it shouldn’t.

And if schools learn to teach beyond grit alone, it won’t. The best schools are already pairing grit (or more eloquently, resilience) alongside other character skills like creativity, teamwork, ethics, curiosity and time management.

When it comes to developing children in this way, we don’t simply want a swinging pendulum; we need schools to function like clockwork.

TIM DELEHAUNTY New Canaan, Conn., Jan. 13, 2015

The writer is head of the Upper School at New Canaan Country School.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Teaching Character in Our Schools. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe